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Chapter 4: COMBAT


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Before moving on to the second step of Chapter 3 in the online SRD, I wanted to post a brief summary to prepare the way for the next big subject: advanced combat. As it is a complex subject with plenty of variables and options, a summary with only the basic principles is the best thing to introduce it.

Opening Move

At Statement of Intents, your stated Opening Move determines your Strike Rank for the round.

Life Points

Negative Life Points are subtracted from a combatant’s Strike Rank at the beginning of each round.

Strike Rank

Each combatant takes action in SR order. Each action or reaction decreases SR, determining a new order for the following actions, until no one has SR left to act.

Acting without Strike Rank

A combatant who cannot pay the full SR price for an action or reaction suffers a Penalty to skill and a loss of Life Points.

Actions and Movement

A combatant can combine movement up to his or her Move score with most actions or attacks that cost at least 5 SR. Moving further requires a non-combat Opening Move.

Exchanges

An Attack action triggers a combat exchange. Attacker and defender roll the dice and compare the results in an opposed skill roll. The winner gains one or more Combat Effects.

Tactical Effects

If the defender made the roll, the winner of an exchange can only use Tactical Combat Effects to gain an advantage in future exchanges, or to try to circumvent the opponent’s success.

Damage Effects

If the defender failed, the attacker rolls for damage and can use either Tactical Combat Effects or Damage Combat Effects, which can alter the nature and amount of damage dealt.

Armour

The unit die of the attack roll determines which armour value, among all armour types the defender is wearing, to subtract from the rolled damage.

Toughness

A damage total below the defender’s Toughness causes a minor wound, and is subtracted only from current Strike Rank. Minor wounds are not cumulative.

Wounds

A damage total matching or exceeding the defender’s Toughness constitutes a major wound, which immediately brings the defender to Negative Life Points.

Localised Damage [optional]

If localised damage is in use, each location has a different value for armour and for Toughness. Major wound effects are only cumulative if they affect the same location.

Comments and questions are welcome.

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So it is variable AP, somehow based on the units dice of the attack roll. I also like this notion of SR decreasing with Life Points reduction. Interesting, I will need to see more

Edited by Mankcam

" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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Hey that sounds pretty neat. I think I like this units dice rule almost as much as I like chainmail bikinis :P

" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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  • 1 month later...

Question about damage in basic combat. In the version of the rules I have, it is said:

"subtracts 1 for each Size class the target is bigger than Medium (or adds 1 for each Size Class for a smaller target)"

Is that either or both ? And this in addition to each opponent's Might, which already depends on size class.

For example, an average class M vs. an average class L: when rolling the die, the class M substracts 1 if it wins and the class L adds 1 if he wins, which makes a difference of 2, or players have to chose between either substracting one for the M OR adding one for the L ?

Then average L would roll 1d6-1 (-1 from the size class difference) and his L opponent would roll 1d6+3 (+2 Might from his size class +1 for the class difference). Or 1d6-1 vs. 1d6+2 ? or 1d6 vs. 1d6+3?

Wind on the Steppes, role playing among the steppe Nomads. The  running campaign and the blog

 

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It is an "or", and it cannot be otherwise. The two statements both refer to the same combatant, the target of the exchange, which cannot be both bigger and smaller than Size Class M. The Might of the target (which is twice the number of size classes you are bigger than M) also applies. This rule replaces the effects of Toughness in basic combat. Note that the rule is about absolute class, not class difference.

So in your example you would have the M combatant doing 1d6-1 (for the absolute size ot the target) and the L combatant 1d6+2 (for Might only, as the target is of average absolute size). Armour and two-hand weapon use could still play a role in this exchange.

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It is probably not in the version you are using. I dunno if it is included in the RC or I will add it to the rules I will send to the editor this month. There certainly is a rule for mounted movement and charging there, but maybe not for . However, the rule for charging and damage is really simple: use the mount's Might instead of yours, which includes the bonus for Size Class. A typical horse has +7 Might, which means you will do 1d8 or 1d10 +7d2 damage.

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It could be a "Set Spear" stunt. There is also a "Steal Modifier" effect.

While this thing is extremely important for historical campaigns featuring field battles, it complicates things in genres. So I would rather confine it to a Stunt to make it "pluggable" if you need it. Attacking from a mount is a bit more common, so it is a better candidate for a general rule.

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Some years ago, I proposed an initiative system to Gianni Vacca for his Imperial China game that was also built around the idea that Initiative was reduced after each action, defining a new turn order for further actions (that is, the same as " Each combatant takes action in SR order. Each action or reaction decreases SR, determining a new order for the following actions, until no one has SR left to act. ").

Did you borrow it from him, or is it completely unrelated ?

Edited by Mugen
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On 22/8/2016 at 5:09 PM, Mugen said:

Some years ago, I proposed an initiative system to Gianni Vacca for his Imperial China game that was also built around the idea that Initiative was reduced after each action, defining a new turn order for further actions (that is, the same as " Each combatant takes action in SR order. Each action or reaction decreases SR, determining a new order for the following actions, until no one has SR left to act. ").

Did you borrow it from him, or is it completely unrelated ?

Completely unrelated. But as you noted, it is exactly the same idea.

This is a very obvious feature that one really could and should have conceived long ago, but nobody has. I think the reason is that when you imagine such a system your first thought is "Oh no! What an incredible amount of book-keeping!"

It was only when we checked how easy it was to keep track of everything by placing a D20 beside each figure at the table that we realized it was actually doable. And that in fact it was a fairly quick way to resolve combat!

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3 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

Completely unrelated. But as you noted, it is exactly the same idea.

This is a very obvious feature that one really could and should have conceived long ago, but nobody has. I think the reason is that when you imagine such a system your first thought is "Oh no! What an incredible amount of book-keeping!"

It was only when we checked how easy it was to keep track of everything by placing a D20 beside each figure at the table that we realized it was actually doable. And that in fact it was a fairly quick way to resolve combat!

Ok :)

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In basic combat, what is the point having a shield in close combat ? It seems to be only cosmetics, but basic combat is more adapted to narrative, so it does not matter so much. Except that it takes one unusefull trait.

Can't we state that a shield removes 1 damage (depletes or disturbs a strike...), provided you have the Trait, like does armour ? Or alternately to allow the situational modifier "Target partially covered by an object" and extend it to close combat ?

Wind on the Steppes, role playing among the steppe Nomads. The  running campaign and the blog

 

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Shields are more useful when someone is likely to use ranged attacks against you. Therefore, it may make sense to limit their usefulness in Close Combat.

I think the usefulness of shields tends to be overstated by our RPG habits.I would say that a shield may bring your armour up by a level in Basic Combat (if you have a helmet and shield you have Light Armour, if you have some basic armour and a shield you have Heavy Armour), but giving them an independent effect would immediately bring you to the "knight in gothic armour and shield" or "samurai with armour and shield" that are the exact opposite of what happened in real life.

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  • 2 months later...

Still trying to get how exactly life points work ... I understand that previous consequences reduce life points at the beginning of combat, that you go directly to zero when you are wounded, that you pay a life point if you have too little Strike Rank left for your action but still want to act ... but do minor wounds cause life-point loss? Or do they really only effect strike rank for that one round?

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4 hours ago, Jakob said:

Still trying to get how exactly life points work ... I understand that previous consequences reduce life points at the beginning of combat, that you go directly to zero when you are wounded, that you pay a life point if you have too little Strike Rank left for your action but still want to act ... but do minor wounds cause life-point loss? Or do they really only effect strike rank for that one round?

MInor wounds do not cause LP loss, as Olivier explained. Unless the attacker uses the Bleed effect!

There is another very important case (apart from castin magic of course). You lose LP when an action/reaction brings your SR below your fatigue threshold, that is your encumbrance - zero for a non-encumbered character, so it is easier to remember the whole story as "whenever you go below your threshold, pay one Life Point". This means that an encumbered character will lose LP faster than an unencumbered one. Much faster, in many cases.

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9 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

MInor wounds do not cause LP loss, as Olivier explained. Unless the attacker uses the Bleed effect!

There is another very important case (apart from castin magic of course). You lose LP when an action/reaction brings your SR below your fatigue threshold, that is your encumbrance - zero for a non-encumbered character, so it is easier to remember the whole story as "whenever you go below your threshold, pay one Life Point". This means that an encumbered character will lose LP faster than an unencumbered one. Much faster, in many cases.

Interesting - is this maybe inspired by "The One Ring"? Armor that protects you against grave wounds, but also brings up your fatigue threshold so that you get worn down faster ... That's one of my favourite features of that system.

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  • 1 month later...

This is an important question which deserves an answer longer than the question itself. The short answer: no, there is no workaround.

The long answer: "ablative" Strike Rank is the core of the Advanced Combat sub-system, and any attempt at not tracking it would break the game. In Advanced Combat, you try to lower your opponent's SR first with Take Initiative or Keep Distance effects, and when SR is low and your foe has a decent chance of missing a defense you go for his Life Points or Toughness, in order to finish him off. If you do not track SR, not only you have to fudge "who goes first", but 70% of the tactical options of Advanced Combat cease to make sense.

What you can - and should! - do in order to make things simpler, is not tracking Life Points until an opponent is seriously wounded. This is clearly explained in the full text of the game, although I think it is not in the SRD. This means that you have only one figure to keep track of for each opponent until they receive a serious wound: Strike Rank. Once the foe is wounded, it will likely go down if it is a mook; if it is a significant foe, you start tracking its LP and wounds from that point on - but believe me, it is not going to last for long as soon as it starts losing Life Points.

In any other D100 ruleset, you would need to keep track of at least Strike Rank and Hit Points for every enemy figure, as cumulative hit points require you to mark minor wounds off Hit Points. In Revolution, you mark these bruises off Strike Rank, actually reducing the number of variables to count until a real wound kicks in. This may not sound the case when reading  the SRD, but you actually have fewer variables to book-keep.

Finally, the rules are designed so that each enemy SR is in the 1-20 range after its first attack, so you can mark Strike Rank with a D20 for each combatant for which the SR is not equal to its starting value. In a few cases you will need to add a D6 for intermediate values, but nothing more than this. Again, this suggestion is in a sidebar and thus not in the SRD.

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On 10.1.2017 at 10:52 AM, RosenMcStern said:

In any other D100 ruleset, you would need to keep track of at least Strike Rank and Hit Points for every enemy figure, as cumulative hit points require you to mark minor wounds off Hit Points. In Revolution, you mark these bruises off Strike Rank, actually reducing the number of variables to count until a real wound kicks in. This may not sound the case when reading  the SRD, but you actually have fewer variables to book-keep.

 

Hm, the thing that I might be getting wrong but that kind of bugs me is the idea that Strike Rank does not only change when someone gets wounded, but also when someone takes an action. So while in any other d100 system, the bookkeeping only starts when someone is hit, in Rd100 advanced combat it starts as soon as someone takes an action - so as GM, I would expect that Strike Rank changes at least every round for every single opponent I control - that just sounds like a lot.

I keep asking about this point because I'm notoriously bad at keeping track of this stuff, at least until someone points out a good way to organize it. Using a d20 sounds like a good idea, but I'm sure that at my gaming table, they would get knocked over, mixed up with other dice or disappear between the snacks ...

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